St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-11-28

Portable living to thousands of gentle
men who quit sunny Italy for Italy'S
good, to bloom out as merchants at the
street corners of Gotham, but it aids i'm
giving employment to other thousands
on three cOntfnents-Europe Africa and
America.
From Virginia southwark to the Gull
of Mexico 1t grows in great abundance,
and millions of bushels are dug annu-
ally to provide strength for people who
attend the circus and are compelled to
listen to the ancient jokes of the clown.
When Jack Frost first makes himself
acquainted with the beautiful autumn
then the peanut farmer is in his glory.
He HES himself at early dawn to the
field armed with a prOnged hoe and digs
up the modest peanut. For the peanut
is modest and hides from the vulgar
gaze. Indeed, it is popularity of this
nut to push its pods into instead of out
of the ground. Hence it requires dig
ging to obtain the crop. The farmer
with his prOnged hoe pulls out the vine
with the peanuts attached, and leaves
them ON the ground for two or three
days to dry. Then he removes them to
shed, where they quietly rest for two
weeks. The nuts are then picked from
the vine and are ready for the tanning
mill.
One hundred bushels to the acre is a
fair estimate, and good peanuts are
worth 81 busheI. If a manor
woman, for that materials 1O0-acre
farm he can have great quantity of
peanuts, which, when exchanged for
dollars, even trade dollars, will net him
a handsome return for his outlay and
labor.
Virginia, the 'mOther of presidents
may be also called the mother of Ameri-
can peanuts. That state alone furnishes
each year over 100000 bushels. The
CarolinaS send their quota, and so does
Tennessee, though the peanuts from
tina latter state are not as white as those
of the other Southern states, and hence
not as high-priced.
The nuts are sent to the peanut fac
tory, as callOw youths are sent to col
lege, to be busted, coming out as white
as snoW-not Broadway snow, but Just
common, everyday snow. The farmers
used to do the dsSting and polish them
at home, but EOW they find it cheaper to
send the peanuts to the peanut fac
tory"
At Norfolk, Va, there are nine of
these factories, where million bushels
often more-of the nuts are cleaned,
polished and sorted by cOIored women.
OF course, all the peanuts are not
large and handsome. Those with only
one kernel are placed in the shelter,
which quickly removes the ''OyercOat,"
find lots of company in the separator
below, which sorts them into three
sizes: extra large" mo. l. and No.
q" Then the nuts are packed up. sent
North, and go to the hands of the con-
fectiOner, the man who gives his Gus
toners taffy.
A better fate awaits the big. healthy
peanut, the ariStocrat, so to speak. 1t
comes out of the tanning mill white
and ''pretty as picture" with the
shell unbroken. These are sent North
also and become the stock in trade of
the street yender and the ''corner spec
ulatOr." They buy the peanuts for So
cents pound. The roasting, when
one-half cent pound. The loss i'll the
process of roasting is 10 per cent, and
the CHEEKY peanut comes up smiling in
the last round at cost of 81. As bushel.
The yender sells them at 10 cents a
quart. But his quart is just little con-
tracted, and he manages TO have forty
of them to the bushel in defiance of all
rules of measurement. Thus the nuts
cost him 81 As a bushel, and he receives
81 bushel, clear profit of $3.50.
But let no one think that this finishes
the work of the modest peanut. Its
mission has much wider scope. Not
only does it figure on the street stand,
but in another form it often appears OF
the table of even the best regulated
families, as ''oliye OIL But this de-
ceitful and wicked peanut is not of ma
tive growth. 1t is a product of foreign
lands.
The peanut yields from ~ to 50 per
cent of of an oil almost colOrleSS and
nearly equal to olive oil i'll taste and
quality. This oil is obtained in various
ways. but the best is furnished by
means of cold compression. and France
is responsible in the main for it.
Marseilles does an enormous trade i'll
olive Oil, but all that is thus labeled is
not olive oil by any means. Last year
10,000,0G0 bushels of peanuts went into
the city i'll their original shape and
or ''huie d'oliye."
This is not all. NO pent-up Utica
confines the scope of the peanut. The
oil that is extracted is also used i'll max
ing toilet soaps. 1t possesses the quail
ity of rendering the skin soft and white.
Many an actress who has given her Ger
tificate as to the worth of some dainty
toilet soap would go into Mysteries if
some knowing person yelled peanuts"
The usefulness of the peanut does
not end here. Its sphere is very extern
siye, and the manufacturers of choe0-
late know the fact remarkably well.
They take the seed of the peanut, grind
it to fine powder, and produce excel
lent chocolate" So-called.
Thus in many and divers ways the
friend of childhood the Communion of
the circus gets in its wolk and shows
n ut ..tlnre,S millions in Il y